Vignette #13: Halloween in Taipei

I was sittin’ in a bar, just a knockin’ ’em back, when in rolls a crew of pint-sized ghouls, princesses, and the cutest little strawberry you’ve ever seen. Yep, Halloween traditions have made it to Taiwan, and the trick-or-treaters were out in force. I’m not sure why they were making the rounds five days before Halloween, but that’s a piddling detail.

TV and movies have spread many Western traditions to Taiwan. There’s a childish appeal to many of these customs that is largely lacking in Taiwanese traditions. Tomb Sweeping Day and Ghost Month, with their emphasis on filial duty, don’t have quite the juvenile appeal of Halloween. Santa Claus and Christmas cater to children’s sensibilities more than Chinese New Year. (See: Ho, Ho, Ho, It’s a Very Taiwanese Christmas). Naturally kids here want to enjoy the hijinks they see in Western media, though the local interpretation differs from what you’d find in the West. In the case of Halloween, there’s no chance that the tykes would be successful going house to house trick-or-treating. So, it has become a bit of a tradition for English buxibans to gather their youngest classes together and take them, as a group, around to participating merchants. It is an exercise in almost unbearable cuteness.

Each group of thirty or so students is accompanied by a couple of local teachers, along with one or two foreign teachers, all dressed up in Halloween garb. The foreign teachers’ hangdog expressions as they herd their miniature brigades of highly excited phantasmagorical charges through the streets is nearly as delightful to behold as the unbridled excitement of the children.

The schools often go to merchants and supply them with candies to give the students. I think, on Anho Rd., where I was, the merchants were supplying the treats and letting neighborhood schools know that they wished to participate in the festivities, because there were numerous groups of children, obviously from various schools, walking up and down the street, going from store to restaurant collecting goodies.

It was heartwarming to watch these groups of children traipse through the dark bar, with its regular coterie of afternoon drunks, collecting their candy from the obviously tickled barmaids. It was a very fine Taiwanese Halloween, and added a nice touch of cherubic color to this old souse’s afternoon quaff.